Therapy & Counselling

If you are a therapist and would like a springboard for individual or group work, consider using “Becoming” as a tool. It can be a different kind of book club.

As a therapist, I think Jill’s book is a very helpful therapeutic tool for clients. One of the critical features of therapy is developing the capacity to self-reflect, i.e., to be able to step back into more of the “observer” role in one’s life and reflect on one’s internal experiences to life circumstances. Many therapists recommend journaling as a tool for reflection. However, my clients often get frustrated because they don’t know what to write about. Jill’s book offers a variety of topics and issues that most people can relate to. She tells her story as a way for people to think about their own life story. She then goes one step further – she ends each chapter/story with questions that bring a focus to reflect upon. She also offers suggested reading materials pertinent to the topic, that can direct people to further ways to reflect and think about their own life journey.

I love that she uses the words “journey to authenticity”. It communicates a powerful message that being “authentic” is a process and journey, not an event or destination. It involves asking critical questions: Who am I? What’s important, what matters to me? Why am I reacting the way I am? What do I really want? What is life? What is the meaning of my life? If I were “myself”, how would I be responding to this situation? As the poet Rilke says . . . “love the questions themselves . . . “ Jill’s questions allow one to enter more deeply into discovering one’s authenticity.

Jill’s story of her own life changes, growth and wisdom offer inspiration and hope. It also offers a methodology to help clients engage more actively with their own process of change.

Key therapeutic benefits of reading and using Becoming:

To help clients see their own life story as a story of “becoming”

To increase self-awareness and compassion for self and others

To develop and strengthen their “observer” self (brain science is showing the benefits to health/well-being in developing that capacity)

To help clients see that “how” they tell their story impacts their perspective and feelings about their life – and that there may be more than one way to perceive one’s life.

To help clients journal in a productive and meaningful way and help them break out of the circular looping the mind can often get stuck in.

To have a way of seeing life’s journey as a process

To assist clients in engaging more deeply with their own lives – to taking on the task of “authenticity”

Key benefits for using Becoming for couples or in a support group setting:

To provide focus for reflecting and sharing

To learn more about each other

To help deepen intimacy

To open curiosity about one’s partner or group members

To expand one’s capacity for accepting the difference and uniqueness on one’s partner or group member